For My Moonbeam
by Lady of the Phoenix
Summary: A decision to care for another can change a life. For the better, for the worse, it depends on how dearly they value that life. And maybe, just maybe, it depends on how far one will go to protect the one they love. A side story in the Lives Under the Pink Moon series.


Notes: Yet another story that was never supposed to happen about a character that wasn't supposed to be a thing. Geez. Alaeza Cerasi is a fantroll belonging to jormungandrising of tumblr. The timeline of this story has it covering from long before the series begins, until the Incident on the Empress's Wiggling Day.

For My Moonbeam

"You? A guardian?" His laughter at the suggestion was more than contemptuous. It was superior, as if he could not begin to fathom just how it was possible that she had even come up with the very idea. "Good joke, Teth. And by good I mean shitty to a degree that isn't even remotely fathomable. Tell me honest, were you drinking before..."

"Stick it, Kyth," Tethys snarled, pulling away from him, throwing back the sheets and twisting out of his reach. The floor of the respiteblock was chilly as her feet touched it, but not so cold as to bother her. Not really. Temperature, she had long since learned, was a matter of perception, and when she compared the temperature of the floor here to how cold she now realized it had been in Oarfoam, the deepsea city she had grown up in so many sweeps ago, she wanted to laugh at herself.

"I'm serious here, Tethys," Kythal continued, clearly following her with hungry eyes as she stood up and strode away from the slab without so much as a stitch covering her skin. "I'm not saying this as your kismesis. This isn't pitch I'm talking here. I'm saying this as an Enforcer. The kind of lives we lead, they aren't exactly suited to wigglers."

Sometimes he was right, and in those moments Tethys wanted to lean in and bite his lower lip in two just because she could. No matter what he said she was going to take it black, and they both knew it. Their kismesistude was... complex would be the kindest word she could come up for it. More than once her moirail had suggested that maybe it was leaning just a bit unhealthy, that the black was becoming sullied with other colors and it was going to ruin them. Two of her best Enforcers were out of play because they came far too close to taking the black far too seriously. Typically Tethys brushed those comments off, she wasn't going to allow Gyliea to become even remotely ashen toward her mess of a pitch relationship.

"I don't intend to cuff a wiggler to the slab," she countered, her response deliberately obtuse and aiming to draw Kythal's attention to the fact that he was still handcuffed to her slabframe rather than allowing him to continue in the current line of conversation.

"Cute, but that isn't what I mean and we both know it," he chuckled in his dry sort of way, twitching his hands around a bit to make the metal of the cuffs ring against the frame. "I'd rather have this conversation unrestrained."

"I'd rather not have this conversation, which leaves both of us unsatisfied."

"That isn't what you were saying just..."

"Are you capable of thinking with anything other than your bulge?" she groaned, rolling her eyes. Still, it wasn't like she was helping the situation. They saw each other so rarely these nights that when they did their clothes didn't last long. Nor did it help that Kythal had never, in all their sweeps, learned to restrain himself when faced with her naked body. With a sigh she snatched a silken crimson robe from a slabpost and draped it over her shoulders. The look on his face as he watched her don the barely covering fabric was a memorable one composed of frustration and longing, and she resisted the urge to laugh at the expression. In some ways Kythal was little more than a beast, and this had always been one of them.

"I can use my pan, which you clearly aren't doing," he snapped as she finally tied the robe in place and hid the better parts of her skin from him. "What kind of life do you have to offer a wiggler? Think about that for a minute. Not that I give a glubbing fuck whether you fail or not. Frankly, I expect it, but no wiggler deserves the life you're going to give them. You're in a better position than most to understand just how much a life gets upheaved when a guardian dies, leaving a wiggler without a clear place in the sea."

Until then she'd been walking away, intending to fetch the key to the cuffs and release the poor excuse for fish bait back into the wild. She was more of a catch and release kind of woman anyway. Oooo, that was a good one, she'd have to tell it to Gyliea later. The Empress was always on the look out for sordid jokes to drop during her council meetings. Her advisers were the too stiff kind that gave no one any pleasure to be around. Oh, that one would set Gyliea laughing up a storm. She really should write these down. Anyway, she'd been about to walk away and the words had stopped her then and there.

"You've done research," she realized, her voice deadpan and cold. "You looked into my files."

"What do you expect of a kismesis? We've been at this for sweeps, you knowing everything about me and me knowing no where near enough. It was time to level the playing field."

"I could have your badge for this," she pointed out, resuming her stride out of the room and into her attached hygieneblock.

"The Kismesitu..." his voice started from the other room.

"The Kismesitude Accords do not apply to those actions which can result in a breach of planetary security," she snapped back, unable to hide the fury in her voice. "I'm going to have to empanel a review board for this, Kythal. You know how much I HATE review boards!"

Which might have been the point of his dropping the hint, she realized belatedly. He wanted to cause her the frustration and fury that came with having to listen to self-righteous bureaucrats who didn't understand the importance of their work. She was the Generali of the Enforcers, she answered to nearly no one. Unless, of course, a panel of practically any sort was put in place to evaluate things. Trolls who thought they understood the way the world worked were the worst kinds of people to put in control of anything.

"Until said panel is created and given the opportunity to evaluate the breech of security that you represent, you are suspended. Effective immediately," she announced imperiously as she turned the water on in her giant ablution trap. "There are no appeals."

There was a roar of fury from the other block as she slipped out of her robe, letting it pool around her feet on the floor. He was going to find a way to pay her back for this, that much was clear. Still, that didn't change her own rage at his betrayal of rules kept in place to make a kismesistude safe for Enforcers. It was already hard enough to keep work professional with him as her Secondar, but there were few trolls as qualified to work directly under her, in both senses implied. But no, this time he had gone too far, and she wasn't sure she knew just how it was going to play out for them in the end.

In the mean time she carefully dipped a toe into the rising water. Steam was already beginning to fill the room as she heard Kythal straining in the other block. As she slipped easily into the water and began to swim the length of the pool-like trap she heard the telltale snap that could only mean that the metal of the cuffs had given out.

"How dare you?" he demanded moments later from the door of the block. The cuffs still clasped his wrists tightly, but the chain that had held them to her slabframe had been snapped near the middle. No doubt she'd have to bring someone in to deal with damages he had caused. In the meantime, though, there was a deep rage in his eyes as he stalked to the edge of the pool, baring his teeth at her the whole time.

"I dare because it's my job to," she breezed, her own snarl turning her lips and uncovering her own razor sharp teeth.

"You'll pay for it."

"I'd like to see you try, finface."

He barely even made a ripple as he slipped into the water. Well, there was a waste of the ablutionbubbler she had just poured into the water. Then again, she was sure he'd find other ways to agitate the water quite soon. Wonderful.

OoOoOoOoOoO

"This way please, Generali," the Maryarch said, not even bothering to take the time to greet her, much less introduce herself. The Maryarchs were like that, women with a purpose who valued it over all other things in existence. That being said, she'd always heard that the jadeblooded women who dedicated their lives to the care and management of the youngest trolls were not only elegant but exceedingly polite. This young woman, though, did not even so much as meet Tethys's eyes as she had summoned her to follow deeper into the catacombs that were the brooding caverns.

They moved in silence through the tunnels, their path lit only by the glow of a moss that grew on the cold stone walls. The pale green light was eerie at best, bathing the skin of the troll before her in a shade that evoked memories of the few limebloods that Tethys had the displeasure of encountering. Not that their stroll lasted long in the bioluminescent light. The Maryarch took a turn down a corridor that was unremarkable and indistinguishable from the one they had just been walking in, and only after they went around a bend that Tethys realized this wasn't what she had been expecting.

She'd heard stories, over the sweeps, about what it was like to choose a ward. One went to the caves after their application was accepted, and they were led by a reverent Maryarch into the chambers off of the brooding caverns where the grubss old enough for care rendered by non-Maryarchs, ones close to their pupation, were kept. There were supposedly soft craters filled with sleepy grubs waiting for homes, and pools filled with the clearest water which held frolicking violets. A guardian selected their pupa and remained behind for a full three nights to learn the proper care of their new ward.

Tethys, though, was being guided away from those normal caverns, she could tell it in the way that the light given off as a soft glow from the walls was being replaced with artificial light kept at its own low level.

"Where are we going?" she asked at last, frustrated with being in a situation she couldn't explain or control.

"The Honored Matriarch wishes to speak with you," the Maryarch responded as she came to a rest before an opening in the wall that had more artificial light spilling from it. "She is through here."

Just what she needed to make her night perfect: yet another person who wished to step in and tell her how bad of an idea it was that she wanted to be a guardian for someone. First it had been Kythal. Then it was Gyliea, telling her that her job and constant threat to her life could make the life of a child difficult. After that it was her new Secondar, and even her thinkrapist had suggested it was a bad idea. In the end she had proved her determination to them all. She had thought that she was finally in position to follow her desires, Now the only person who could truly refuse her this stood between her and her wisher was before her, and Tethys wasn't sure how to deal with that.

With a deep breath she took the step forward into the opening, and she only had to take a handful of steps beyond before she realized there was far more going on here than she had expected. The cavern had widened almost immediately, one wall staying in reach on one side of her, while the other swept away and left instead a large cavern that was softly lit and broken up into smaller spaces by glass walls and doors. Beyond the glass she saw grubs of every shade but fuchsia, each under the watchful gaze and caring ministrations of older Maryarchs. Already she could see that there was something not quite right with some of those little ones. There was a violet whose tailfin was torn, an olive with one of its legs missing, and a few yellows kept separate from the others in what looked to be padded rooms. These were not the grubs normally shown to those seeking guardianship, that much was clear.

"Honored Generali," a voice came from her elbow, and Tethys had to flinch at the sound of it. One had to give the jadebloods credit, they were sneaky beyond belief. "Welcome to the culling chambers."

Tethys turned to look down at the woman who, for all that she was a full head shorter than Tethys, seemed tall enough to have her horns brush the distant ceiling. There were always trolls like that, ones so regal, so self possessed, so elegant, that one had to sit down and take notice. Most jadebloods had that sort of composure, down to a woman. As for the jadeblooded males, well, Tethys had never met one before. She knew they existed, but they were quite rare, and she'd never even met a troll who knew a male jadeblood. Now there would be a tasty little treat she could sink her teeth into. But alas, there were none here now. There was only the woman that must be the Honored Matriarch and a few Maryarchs beyond the glass dealing with their charges.

"Honored Matriarch," Tethys greeted, bowing her head in acknowledgment. She lowered herself for no one but the Empress herself, a point the Matriarch was likely aware of, or at least understood on some level. "Forgive me, but no one informed me as to why I was meeting with you today. Nor do I know what you mean by 'culling chambers.'"

"Few do. It is something we have kept quiet in the past, though it becomes more fashionable," the Matriarch said with a sigh. Still she didn't look at Tethys, instead staring through the glass to watch the care of the grubs. "Would you mind if I gave you a lesson, child?"

It took a lot more than Tethys was expecting to resist pointing out that she hardly qualified as a 'child' compared to this woman. She had already outlived a few of the bluerbloods she had gone to officerfeeding with when she had been moved to shallower Enforcer duties. Chances were she had at least a handful of decades on the jade, if not centuries. Sometimes it was hard to tell, what with how gracefully jades aged. Still, if the Matriarch felt the need to play the role of a guardian to all who she met, that was her prerogative. Maybe even her right.

"I am honored to learn at your hand," Tethys recited. How long had it been since she had used the traditional response to a feeder of any sort.

"And I live to feed the hunger of your mind," the Matriarch responded, equally formal. "I am unaware as to whether you will have learned or not about the full range of issues that may be presented early in a troll's life. But truth be told, there are quite a few issues that can come upon even the young. You can see some of the more obvious ones cared for here. These young ones are culled from the general population. There have been suggestions that they may not survive into adulthood on their own, and as such we have attempted to provide for them. These poor offspring will have hard lives, and need care and management to see them to adulthood and happy lives. Their guardians must be wise, patient, and prepared to go above and beyond to care for their charges."

"Why are you telling me that?"

"When applications for guardianship are received they are carefully reviewed, and a number flagged as potential caretaker for these difficult cases," the Matriarch continued as if Tethys had not spoken. "These applications are reviewed again, more carefully, to see if they are suitable in temperament, position, and ability to care for our weakest children. Often we choose experienced guardians, ones who have already dealt with the issues that may be presented by caring for those who are less suited for nature's urge for survival of the fittest. Unfortunately it has become the style for colderbloods who live on land to take in these charges, to brag about their 'culls.' We Maryarchs are torn over this situation. On one hand these children are carefully cared for, well loved, and sheltered for anything which could do them harm. On the other we have found that these children grow up coddled. They are ill prepared to handle their circumstances when they go into the real world. Or they are told of their short comings, and their guardian overcompensates, so they expect the world to cater to them..."

"And either way they don't have the lives they should have. They either live oblivious and thus unprepared, or they live under an onus of shame for not being good enough," Tethys observed, shaking her head. "Has to be hard."

"I expected you would say something like that," the Matriarch responded, a faint smirk on her face. "I am glad I read your character well. Look there..."

Tethys followed the delicate arch formed by the Matriarch's outstretched arm and pointing finger, and found herself staring at a small violet grub splashing happily in very shallow water. Of course, Tethys couldn't help but notice that the water given to that grub was shallower than that with any of the other violets. Even as she stared she could see a Maryarch lift the grub from the water and wrap it in what looked to be a damp piece of undyed Virgin Mothergrub silk.

"What's wrong with it?" Tethys asked, frowning. "It looks fine compared to the others."

"My Sister has wrapped him in wet silk for a reason. It was very shortly after the newly hatched grub was placed in the firstponds that we discovered his gills are underdeveloped. We do not know if he will grow out of this, but it means that he cannot be given to the traditional violetblood we prefer to give young violets into the hands of. A life exclusively underwater would potentially be fatal to him. And yet it is found that violets and fuchsias who do not experience life in or near the water in their youth suffer mental and developmental problems. Most violetblood guardians live either on the shore or entirely underwater during the early years of their ward's pupation."

"Why are you telling me all of this?" Tethys whispered the question, fearful that she already knew the answer.

"Tethys Hydrus, your line of work, your rank, and your personal life bind you irrevocably to the Empress. It is a complex situation into which we would be loathe to place a normal child. Yet in being bound so close to the Empress, you give us a unique opportunity to place this child to his best advantage. We are aware that your apartment is subaquatic, that only a quarter of your hive is flooded due to your need to work with many landdwellers, and to be approachable to your command staff. Your frequency of interaction with the Empress and her decision to center her government upon the land rather than in the sea also makes for an opportunity to locate a child near the ocean and yet still deal with any medical issues that may arise. Your background of accepting specially gifted trolls and driving them to be their best despite any limitations they might have may also be an advantage for the youth. And so, we would ask that you take charge of this ward we would offer you and give him not the best life, but the greatest preparation for life that he could have. Will you do this for us?"

"That's not everything, is it?"

The Matriarch chuckled, finally turning to smile up at Tethys. "Oh, my dear, you are as talented at reading other trolls has I have heard. No, that is not everything. There is one other reason we ask this of you and not another troll who might have the same or similar qualifications."

"And that is?"

"The sign the Mother Grub gave him... He is to be an Ampora. I know it is odd to find a shared sign among the seadwellers, we thought you might..."

"Kythal doesn't have a matesprit. Never has to my knowledge," Tethys observed, her voice filled with awe.

"No, but he has had a kismesis for very many sweeps. We cannot say for sure, but..."

"I'll give him everything in my power, Honored Matriarch. I will not spoil him any more than I would have spoiled another child. And when he leaves my care, he will be prepared for the real world in a way that few others are."

"I thought you would say something along those lines. Come, would you like to hold him?"

"Please."

OoOoOoOoOoO

"You minnow I hate to agree with Kythal on somefin like this..."

"Then don't," Tethys hissed under her breath as she aimlessly stirred her soup. After a moment she lifted her voice louder and repeated, "Then don't. You're my moirail, you're supposed to be supportive."

"Tethys, dear, you minnow I would never reefen dare to involve myshellf in your business. In fact, I've supported your decision completely. I believe you're a perfect candidate for guardianfish. I just think it's shellfish to take a cullcase that cod be better handled in the fins of another troll," Gyliea continued with a sigh and a shake of her head. "And don't just chase your soup. Drink it."

"I will when you stop laying it on so thick with the bait," she snapped as she glared across the low table they were seated at for their lunch.

Sometime between her last official meeting with the Empress half a week before to discuss funding issues and her arrival for lunch this evening, Gyliea had replaced all the chairs in the Imperial Suites with deep cushions and the proper tables with low things that seemed to love jumping into the path of shins. It was a phase, one the Empress indulged in for a pentasweep or so every century. Something about embracing different subcultures of their people. Tethys loathed when this happened; she'd always favored either going with plain chairs or natural waterscapes. The whole idea of living one's life with pillow mounds and low tables was ridiculous and frankly painful. Yet somehow Gyliea had the nerve to sit there with her legs curled under her like a shellslimebeast's foot, back perfectly straight, and oozing poise almost to rival that of the Honored Matriarch. How could she be so comfortable when Tethys was so tense and confused and honestly infuriated that Gyliea wasn't supporting her like she should?

"I... I'm sorry," the Empress sighed, looking down into her own soup sorrowfully. "You know I don't want to upset you."

Great, now she was the bad guy. Tethys swallowed a groan and politely leaned forward so she could sample her soup in hopes that would cheer her palemate. Because she had done something terrible in being so brash toward her moirail. Though there were few who would knew, or even dared to guess, the great and powerful Empress Gyliea had trouble facing conflict. Ironic that the woman thought to be the most straightforward and confident in the Empire was in fact timid in her own rights. Worse was that there wasn't anything that really triggered those self-conscious nerves quite like having her moirail upset with her. The only thing Tethys could do to deal with the issue she had created was to shoosh her moirail, but such was seen as improper table etiquette at any level of society, and a line Tethys would not cross. Instead she had to treat the problem as if it wasn't one at all.

"Are you looking forward to when the Honored Matriarch comes to tell you that the Mother Grub has borne fuchsias?" she asked instead of pressing her annoyance.

"Yes," Gyliea answered, her voice soft and wistful, like it always got when the idea of her future heiress and other daughters were brought to her. "It will be a burden of no small degree, but Reidra has already offered to return to help me care for them. Alaeza... Well, she is a bit less excited. Something about not wishing to break in a new Empress."

"They are your sisters, they will support you," Tethys soothed her moirail, smiling softly. "Alaeza... Well, she doesn't like to fathom the idea of not having you around. You've always been there for her. It honestly must be nice to have so many people around you, so many sisters, willing to care for you and support you."

"Yes," Gyliea agreed once again, this time looking up and smiling fondly at Tethys herself. "One of the most wonderful things in the world."

"Now consider how it's going to be for this poor little one. Unable to be raised with any others for fear he be hurt. Unable to handle the water properly and thus keeping him from the traditional care most violetblooded cullers would prefer. What kind of life will he have then? Who will he become?"

This time no smile, no agreeing, just a pained and almost annoyed look flashing across Gyliea's face.

"You did that on porpoise," the Empress accused, slipping easily back into her regal mannerisms at the drop of one of those wooden eating sticks that lay just a few inches from Tethys's plate. Honestly, what were those damn things for? The dairybeast noodle soup worked perfectly fine with a spoon, so why would you need another utensil? Seriously, this damn phase had to go sooner rather than later for her sanity.

Or maybe just so she'd stop getting distracted by minor things that were truly of no significance.

"You want me to feel for this cullcase. Dam you, Tethys, I'm just trying to protect you!"

"I've never needed someone else to protect me," Tethys answered quietly, finally pushing her bowl of soup aside. "And we both know you already feel for the poor thing. We both do. And I need to do this. If not for his sake, then for mine."

That seemed to give the Empress pause, because Gyliea sat up straighter—how was that even physically possible—and frowned severely in the way she always did when she was thinking rather hard. Tethys watched in silence, knowing that any pressure now would lose her case in the eyes of her moirail. Not that it would stop her, of course, but the support of her moirail was priceless in the face of what steps came next in raising the cull. No, better not to think of him as that; she wanted him to feel normal, loved, capable. He would never see himself as lesser if she could help it, and in her position she was certain she could do it.

Finally there was motion, Gyliea's hand coming off of her spoon and moving to brush some imagined strands of hair behind a facial fin. Tethys knew her moirail well enough to recognize the tell that few others had the chance to pick up on. The simple fact was that for all the fact that the Empress's hair seemed relatively loose and free in the high hoofbeast-tail she wore it in, Tethys knew that not a single hair ever went out of place out of the water due to a special gel Gyliea used by the bottle nightly. No, her nervous habit came from her time underwater, where her hair was always in the way. When she was just enjoying herself and acting in an informal capacity she didn't care if her hair got well into her mouth or wrapped around her throat. It was only when she was trying to appear regal and just that she cared so much for her appearance. Now was the time to strike.

"The Mother Grub has assigned his sign, Peix. He's to be an Ampora."

Maybe it was the rarely used pet name that did it. Maybe it was the way using it sometimes reminded Gyliea just how much power there was in what sign they might be born under. More likely than either of those, though, was the connection that Tethys would swear she could see forming in her moirail's thinkpan.

"Then he's..."

"I don't know," she admitted weakly, honestly, "But if he is? Peix, what if he is? Can I afford to live the rest of my life wondering, worrying, that I made the wrong choice and left his life up to chance? I know we're not supposed to care, or be concerned, or any of that, but..."

"But only an Empress can even remotely begin to suspect they are truly related to another troll because of actual concupiscent relaitonships," Gyliea agreed with a sigh. "You know it's probably some rare and random chance..."

"I can't live my life thinking I didn't do every last thing I could for him. I'm not asking you to help me. I'm not even asking you to approve of it or support my decision. All I'm asking is that you not try to stand between me and what I need to do."

At last Gyliea's expression softened and she moved, leaning forward just slightly and yet eagerly at the same time.

"So what are you going to name him?"

Well, now there was a question she actually had a good answer for. With a grin she leaned forward conspiratorially, pitched her voice low, and said, "Eridan."

The name, long unspoken between them, made Gyliea's eyes go wide. "For..."

"I'll never feel for another troll the way I did him," Tethys answered with a little nod. "Just as I don't think I'll ever feel for another the way I will my little one."

Gyliea didn't have a response for that but a sad smile, and Tethys turned her eyes to where her hands had found themselves curled in her lap. Wistfully she let the thumb of her right hand stroke the heart finger of the other hand. She still wore the ring he had given her. A piece of violet coral cut and smoothed to fit her finger perfectly, and hidden as it had been for so many sweeps under her solar protection gloves. It was all she had left, but soon... Soon, in a way, that wouldn't be true anymore.

OoOoOoOoOoO

It had taken a full perigee to get everything ready. The first week or so she had bought any and every book on grub and wiggler rearing and guardianship that she could find. Half she discarded almost immediately after she returned home because their language treated care as a science, their contents dry and unapproachable when she had to be able to eagerly read the things quickly and in the few moments to herself that she could snatch. Others she found so useful that she went back to the bookmerchant's to get a seadweller print so she could even read while swimming leisurely through her hive.

The next few weeks were spent purchasing everything she would and might need. Nutritional supplements, squeakmonitors, blankets, soft toys, dim lights, even down to a custom made, more shallow than normal bathing dish. The week after she made her final purchase she went out once more, this time with a Maryarch that had been sent to her to buy the things she hadn't thought of that were needed when caring for a cull like her little Eridan would be. Then there was the week she handed all her work responsibilities over to Kythal, who had been happy to remind her that he thought this was a bad idea. Of course the wheels were already turning, and there really wasn't much going back. Besides, the primary guest respiteblock wasn't going to convert itself into a pupationblock on its own. At least in the cleaning, painting and organizing she had the help of Maryarch Winlas, who was even so kind as to offer lighting advice and to arrange the second guest respiteblock on her own. It was only then that Tethys learned that raising a cullcase like Eridan netted you a Maryarch to watch over and teach you until a few perigees after pupation.

In the end it only took three nights after she and Winlas had brought Eridan home before Tethys threw all the books she had bought in the trash. It wasn't even remotely funny how wrong they were.

OoOoOoOoOoO

"I don' wanna go swimmin', Efies," he mumbled, ducking his face down in his big, fluffy sweater and even further obscuring his words.

"Eridan," she sighed, a look that she hoped was comforting painted over her features, "I thought you loved your swimming lessons."

Almost immediately Eridan retreated further into his sweater, even going so far as to pull his facial fins in closer to his face in a way that was both adorable and pathetic. Someday, Tethys was sure, he'd have no problem getting himself a pale quadrant. For now, though, the two sweep old just looked like a child who had broken something and didn't want his guardian to know. If that was the truth, well, Tethys wasn't so worried. Something broken was replaceable. Yes, she'd have to punish her little Eri, but mostly because he needed to understand the concept of accepting the repercussion of one's actions. Yet there was something about the way Eridan was standing, not shuffling from foot to foot, that said something else entirely.

"I don' wanna do 'em no more," he insisted in his childish way that said it wasn't up for argument. "I newer wanna swim again!"

Immediately Eridan started to turn, ready to flee to his room, and instead of letting him go Tethys reached out and caught her ward up in her arms. Even while he squirmed and protested she pulled him tightly into her arms and hugged him and cooed at him until finally he stopped struggling and wrapped his arms around her neck. Still she held him, humming and slowly swaying and spinning and doing everything she had learned over the sweeps to comfort him. It wasn't until he had quieted and started tugging on her hair like he did when he wanted to talk to her that she came slowly to a stop. That being said, she didn't let her charge down until she had swept over to a chair, seated herself, and let him get comfortable in her lap.

"Eri, you know I'll let you skip a lesson or two, but I can't just not teach you. It's my job as your guardian to see that you can swim. So, if you expect me to do a bad job, you've got to give me a really good reason."

Again Eridan started to duck into his sweater, and with a sigh Tethys grabbed his collar and held it far too low and tight to his body for him to hide.

"No, you can't do that now. We need to use our big wiggler words. Tell me why you don't want to swim."

For a while Eridan's eyes cast about as if he was trying to find a way out of the conversation. At last he leaned forward, buried his face in her Enforcer hooded-shirt. "'Ey made funnuh me."

So... It was finally that time. Tethys did everything she could to keep from going stiff; Eridan would feel it, think he had done or said something wrong. The truth was now, as it had always been, that he was her perfect little ward, right down to his flaws. Unfortunately those flaws weren't a little part of him.

"Who made fun of you?" she asked, keeping her voice soft and conversational.

"Ofer wigglers," he whimpered into her shirt, and she could feel moisture starting to seep through from the tears he was gasping around. "Said... said I swim likuh blind brown."

It was her fault, all her fault. He hadn't been ready, but it had been important that she actually have that meeting with Gyliea. The truth was that she had barely seen her moirail since Eridan had come into her life, and the Empress had finally started to crack under the pressure of having no one to confide in. She had promised herself it would only be one night that he'd be with the nightcare, but in the end it had been three nights in a row she had pawned him off on them. Until now Eridan hadn't said anything about it, for all that he had moped around the hive. Of course she'd done her best to reassure him that she wasn't leaving him, giving him all his favorite foods for meals and playing his favorite games. But it hadn't occurred to her, had never even really thought about the fact that nightcares for seadwellers had small pools for their charges to splash around and swim in. Hadn't even occurred to her until just this moment, hadn't come up until they finally settled down into their old routine on her first day back and she had told Eridan it was time for their swimming practice.

It wasn't practice, in truth; at least, not in a sense that other seadwellers had to experience. For a violet swimming was as natural as breathing. In fact, Eridan had all of the swimming part of it down perfectly, if clumsily as he was still a child that lived most of his life dry. No, the problem was that her Eridan, her flounder, her moonbeam, had unfortunately been born with underdeveloped gills. Their nightly swims were her attempt not only to keep Eridan healthy with experience of the water, but to try and help him get stronger and overcome the physical shortcoming. And, if she was any judge, Eridan was already doing five times better at swimming than he had been half a sweep ago. It helped immensely that Eridan loved the water, loved their 'practice' and sometimes asked to swim a second time in a single evening.

"First of all," Tethys started after taking a deep breath, "none of them has ever seen a brown blood so I doubt they know what they are talking about."

That comment, at least, drew a hesitant smile from her ward.

"Second," she continued without letting Eridan speak, "the best part about people teasing you when you're so small is that it means they are jealous of how awesome you are."

"REAWY?" Eridan asked, looking up at her excitedly. He was beaming now, and Tethys forced her smile to stay in place. It hurt to lie to him like this, but he needed the words anyway. There was plenty of time in the future for the truth. Now he needed confidence, and that was what she was going to give him.

"Totally. Third, and this is the last one and most important so you better pay attention... Ready? You can only get better, my sweet little moonbeam. Every time you're in the water you get better. In fact, I don't think we're going to practice tonight after all..."

"But you just..." Eridan started to protest and Tethys just pressed a finger to his lips.

"I said pay attention. Tonight we're not going to practice in the pool. Tonight you and I are going for a real swim."

That made Eridan's little eyes go wide, his facial fins fanning themselves out to their fullest in his true excitement. Tethys hadn't taken him on a 'real' swim in a while. The sea swims were a rare thing she used to test how far his endurance and respiration had come along, and they were few and far between. She didn't want to make him sad when he found he couldn't go far. That being said, she had planned on another swim in a few weeks, so would it really hurt to go early?

"Now, why don't you go get on your swimming stuff, and I'll go get mine and we'll head to the beach and play there all night."

It was almost amazing how fast her ward leapt from her lap and ran off toward his respiteblock. For a moment Tethys just stayed there in her chair, staring after him, and let herself frown. Had she been wrong? Had Gyliea and Kythal been right? Would her Eridan have been better off with another guardian? One that could pamper him and give him the world, regardless of what the Honored Matriarch had thought he needed?

OoOoOoOoOoO

"Can we just stop?"

"No way, my precious flounder. We've still got another three leagues before we hit our base for the day."

"Will you stop callin' me that? I'm nearly five sweeps old!"

"And these are the only times we're alone enough for you to still be my little boy."

"Geez! I'm an Enforcer trainee first and your ward after. You say that all the glubbin' time."

"First, never take that tone with me. Second, watch the language, I don't care if you got it from your pretty little moirail. Third, the requirements for seadweller Enforcers requires you to make this kind of trip on your own, faster than this, and the deepdive quickly as well. You need the practice. I've made it hard for you living subaquatic, so you need the experience every other violet has by fact of their birth."

"... Tethys?"

"Yeah, Moonbeam?"

"Is... There something different about me? The way you..."

"There is _nothing _wrong with you. And anyone who ever dares to suggest it will have me to deal with. Even if it's you. Got it?"

"Yes ma'am."

OoOoOoOoOoO

"You're too hard on him."

"I don't remember asking for anything nearing your opinion," Tethys responded without looking up at the troll who had the nerve to stride into her officeblock without knocking first. Of course she wouldn't have even needed to hear his voice to know just who it was who dared to invade her personal space. The only troll with the shameglobes to do that was her Secondar, a man who hadn't even the faintest notion how thin the ice he was treading had become.

"Well, I'm giving it now, just like I did then," Kythal responded as he flopped down into the chair across from her desk and had the gall to put his feet up on her desk. If only he knew just how fucking punchable he looked just then. Or maybe he did know and was happily playing it up. "Keep going like you are, driving him like we all know you drive him, and people are going to start wondering if you aren't a little black for your ward."

"Actually, I think they would worry you were jealous of a child," she countered, still not looking up from her paperwork as she skimmed through yet another report that made her almost nauseous. When had things gotten this bad? "Surely you're old enough, and confident enough, to not worry that I'm looking to nail my ward when I have you around."

"Me, worry?" he chuckled, removed his feet from the desk, and leaned in to try and catch her eye, not that she let him, "How could I worry when I know whose slab you frequently are cuffed to."

"Exactly," she agreed with no force behind the word as she slid the papers in her stack across the desk toward him. "I wanted your input on these..."

Now that she had finally looked at him Tethys saw Kythal raise an eyebrow questioningly, then lift the stack of papers, lean back in his seat, and look at her lecherously before he settled in to skim over the papers. As she watched she could pinpoint the exact moment when he realized just what he was looking at. It was in the way that his lips pinched together, his eyes narrowed, and his facial fins bristled in an aggressive sort of way. Quickly he flipped to another page, this time baring his teeth as he read. Another page and he was leaning forward in his chair. A fourth and he was practically standing.

"Who the fuck do these..." he started to demand until Tethys cut him off.

"They think they are Imperial citizens, fellow Enforcers, and one particularly annoyed member of the planetary defense force who all have this strange belief that they have the right to complain when they or there are harassed by a members of the Enforcers. Especially when harassed by one in such a high position, and one holding such worrying ideas of what people that are his..." she reached for another piece of paper at her side, peered over the top of her shades and read the highlighted quote, "'inferiors so clearly put there by the swill in their veins.'"

"That was taken out of context!"

"No," Tethys sighed, shaking her head, "it isn't. It's a transcript of a video a bystander shot of you. You've developed a bit of a reputation, Kythal, and it worries me that it took so long for me to hear about it. I've got three reports in that stack from your subordinates that they have been given jobs they were not qualified for, that were dangerous, or that they were passed over for promotion because of their bloodcolor. I've got a report from a concerned guardian that noted you told her ward it was his own fault he was being bullied because he was stupid enough to be born maroon. I actually have a recording of you telling a guardian of a cullcase child who was hit by a seaskimmer driven by two intoxicated violetblooded _minors _that if she hadn't wanted to mourn her child she should have just put him down when she was given him."

"She should have!" Kythal roared, coming at last to his feet as his fists slammed into the desk. "For that matter, so should you. What the fuck do you think you're even doing? Raising that defective shit with my sign!? He's a disgrace. You should have let him drown! Like a violet is worth anything if he can't handle the water!"

"He told me that the time you took him for a swim when he was younger... He told me... Tell me it wasn't true, Kythal," she almost begged him. Because if it was then she had been blind to just what kind of man her kismesis was for too many sweeps. She had nearly gotten Eridan hurt with that blindness. Chances were he had only stopped hurting Eridan, stopped trying to drown him and calling it 'training' because he had realized she would kill him for it. And Eridan, her son, had lied to her because he hadn't understood that she would always hold him as more important than this piece of filth before her. The only reason her son had even told her, in the end, was because he had snuck into her officeblock at the hive and gone through some of the paperwork she had accidentally left behind when rushing off to see Gyliea and noticed something she hadn't seen yet.

"I should have just broken his legs and left him on some island to burn in the sun," Kythal snarled at her, a sick look of pride and regret clear on his face. "But you'd judge me for that wouldn't you? What a shame you're so behind in the times."

"I hope you like the deepsea," she answered, standing herself. "You're being reassigned to Oarfoam. And so we're clear... You're just a regular patroller now. It's the only thing I can do to protect people from you and still retain your experience. Congratulations. I'm pretty sure you're the first Secondar in history to be busted down so far."

"You _bitch_," he snapped, and when she saw the way his shoulders were tensing, his legs bunching, she drew her sword from her side without even hesitating and rested it against his neck.

"Get out of my sight before I have you arrested. Because I will, and I'm certain I could bury you in some small, bright cell for the rest of your days without anyone batting an eyelash."

The way he pulled himself back into perfect poise without even a slight hint of the rage seething through him was quite impressive. "Of course, my ebon..."

Tethys pressed the blade closer to his skin, resisting satisfaction at how a thread of violet blood welled up at the pressure. The only way to make this break clean was to make sure she took no pleasure in this. She needed to be able to kill him with no hesitation, no regret, no hatred. That was the only way she could protect those she loved. A clean, sudden break.

"I'm getting a tattoo, Kythal. On my hip. I'm thinking of the Enforcer's symbol in black."

There, in his eyes, was finally a genuine reaction. Horror, denial, fury so bright she wondered if he would lunge at her despite the blade between them. He knew what she meant, what she was telling him in no uncertain terms. A tattoo over a scar meant the troll who gave it meant nothing. The memorable harm absorbed into the patterns of something they took on willingly. No, more than that. To cover a kismesis scar meant denying they ever held a true quadrant in the past. She was cutting him out and he knew it. He hated it.

"Now get out of here."

"You'll pay for this, Hydrus," Kythal snapped, and she stood there, calm and strong with her sword at his throat. "I swear it."

"Maybe, but I won't regret it," she responded. It was enough, had to have been, because Kythal pulled away from the blade and strode briskly out of her office, slamming her door behind him.

Tethys stood there for another minute, staring at the door. Then, legs weak and pan weary, she collapsed back into her chair and wept.

OoOoOoOoOoO

He was safe, and really, that was all she could ask. Maybe it was more than she had any right to ask, Tethys realized as she stared at the door Eridan and the fuchsias had just disappeared through. She should have known, should have figured it out sooner. And yet it had taken until the doors had opened and see had seen Kythal striding confidently forward, his massive plasma rifle at his hip for her to realize. She should have killed him then and there in her office, all those sweeps ago. Instead she'd left him alone, letting him fester, and her moirail had paid for it. Soon her son might as well if she didn't do something to stop the familiar monster slowly walking toward her.

"Teth..." a voice groaned from her side. The Empress, her Empress, her Moirail, her Peix. Tethys glanced down at her, met the pain in those fuchsia eyes, and she knew. There was no survival for her beloved stars, but maybe, just maybe for her moonbeam.

"Peix," she shooshed her moirail, gently stroking the side of her cheek and trying not to cry at the way her moirail flinched in pain. "Peix, I'm sorry. I should have seen this coming. I should..."

"Protect... them," Gyliea croaked out, hand shakily rising and only sort of pointing at the blade Tethys wore at her side. Wave's Edge, its name etched along the tang and dyed fuchsia with an enamel colored by the Empress's own blood so long ago; there was nothing else the Empress could mean. While most others had jewelry to serve as their primary bond token with their moirail or matesprit, this was the token her moirail had given her. All else she wore was newer. This was the first, this was the seal of their bond. Slowly Tethys drew the blade and held it out to her Empress. Gyliea's face twisted into something not unlike a smile, and her eyes closed slowly. Still her chest rose and fell gently, but Tethys held no illusions that it would do so much longer.

As much as she wanted to stay at her moirail's side, to be with her until her final moments, there were other duties to be done. Sword held perfectly in hand from years of so much practice that it was practically instinct, Tethys rose to her full height. She pushed her shades all the way up in front of her eyes, shifted her grip, and with a roar lunged through the smoke and wreckage of her life to right the only wrong she had fallen short of fixing. It was all she could do for Gyliea. All she could do for the Heiress.

All she could do for her precious moonbeam.


End file.
